Nov 10
Create realistic illustrations using Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh
2004 at 01.29 am posted by Veerle
Do you remember my post about those stunning photorealistic drawings? They use complex gradient meshes to achieve such result. If you have some Illustrator experience and you wonder how such gradient mesh works or you wonder how to start, I’m sure this tutorial might help.
First of all you need a picture to start from to imitate. Just look for a picture that might suit you. In my example I've used a typical Belgian vegetable, Brussels chicory. Place (File > Place) the picture in a separate layer and lock the layer. Create a new one on top of it to start the illustration. Select the Pen Tool from the toolbox and start drawing the paths...
You'll find everything in this PDF (ZIP file - 789 KB).
UPDATE : Thanks to Jay I've discovered that this veggie is actually called endive in America. My dictionary gave me another translation (chicory could be British English). Here are some websites to get to know more about this vegetable, including some recipes on how to prepare this delicious treat:
Enjoy! ;-)
Want to learn more?
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14served
1
Very nice, with a good example… “Brussels lof” to you. Is the background of the Chicory also done in Illustrator or are those flowers part of a bitmap?
2
Hi ianus, the background (flowers) is part of a bitmap.
3
Very cool! You rule!
4
Very interesting. Illustrator borrowed a concept from 3D applications and made an extremely useful tool for 2d. Great work and a good tutorial.
5
Veerle, this is so generous of you, thank you. As always, an excellent tutorial on a particularly vexing subject!
Here is a similar image I did a while back.
My approach was a bit different, and made use of a little used Illustrator tool (hint, the shortcut is shift-r) to speed up the process considerably.
I quickly wrote up the steps I used, and posted them at my site. I hope someone finds it useful.
Thanks again for the inspiration!
6
Veerle, nice tutuorial and thanks for giving me the inspiration on how to spend my 11th November :-)
7
Thanks Veerle for another lovely tutorial.
8
That veggie looks just like what we call endive in the US.
9
@Jay, I didn’t know that ;-) I didn’t know the English word for this vegetable and looked it up in my dictionary. But now that I did a search on Google I see that you are right, thanks for mentioning this :-) I’ve updated my post and added some links too!
10
Thanks, Veerle, for another great tutorial. By the way, endive is the French word too, and I expect that English borrowed it from the French. It’s pronounced on-deeve in French, but n-dive in English.
11
Haha… Veerle, in your update to this post, you say, “Including some recipes on how to prepare this delicious threat.”
I don’t know if that was intended or not, but it brought a nice grin! Surely, an unknown food like this could be either a ‘treat’, or a ‘threat’. :)
By the way… excellent tutorial!
12
@Jay… ouch!! What a mistake LOL :-S It should be treat of course I can assure you :-P I’ll fix it immediately.... damn those spell checkers… both words exist so I didn’t notice my rather funny mistake :-D
13
Thanks Veerle.. love your tutorials..
14
Dude, i like your site design. Thanks for the tutorial - i was linked from sitepoint, but I have no idea what that vegetable is. How come you didn’t do it with something that everyone has heard of? :P